NIA allowed to quiz suspected Hizbul militant Liyaqat in jail

New Delhi: The National Investigation Agency (NIA) was on Tuesday allowed by a Delhi court to interrogate suspected Hizbul militant Sayyed Liyaqat Shah, who is presently lodged in Tihar Jail under judicial custody, in the prison itself till 30 April.

Shah has been booked for waging war against the country by Delhi Police which claimed he was planning to carry out terror attacks in the national capital.

Liyaqat Shah.

District Judge I S Mehta allowed the NIA's plea seeking permission to interrogate Shah in the jail itself.

"I have perused the application. The same is allowed. Chief investigating officer (of NIA) along with his team is allowed to interrogate Sayyed Liyaqat Shah in Tihar Jail till April 30, 2013 as and when required," the judge said.

With Shah's arrest generating conflicting versions from the Delhi and Jammu and Kashmir police, the Centre recently transferred the probe in the case to NIA.

While Delhi police has claimed that with Shah's arrest they had foiled a 'fidayeen' (suicide) attack in the capital ahead of Holi, its J-K counterpart insisted that he was one of those who had exfiltrated in 1990s and had returned to India to surrender under the state's rehabilitation policy.

45-year-old Shah, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir, was sent to judicial custody by a court in New Delhi till 12 April after he was produced before it on expiry of his 15 days of police custody.

Shah has been quizzed by the special cell of Delhi police since 21 March.

The police had earlier said that Shah was apprehended on 20 March from the Indo-Nepal border area near Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh and had revealed during interrogation that he is a trained militant of banned terror group Hizbul Mujahideen and was settled in Muzaffarabad in Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK).